Final week

It's hard to believe that this is the final week.  We are all trying to live in the present, but are pretty dismayed about the prospect of returning to the "real world".  Here is a picture of my day today:  yoga in the morning with Devavani and Sasha, downloading pictures that Devavani took around the property including numerous pictures of a banana slug that was the pinnacle of Devavani's walk with me yesterday, she even took a video of it.  Lunch with some residents, sitting around catching up on what everyone had done that morning.  Work in my studio after lunch, finished choreography to a poem by Pireeni with music by Ari and worked on some new phrases for my project in September in Long Beach.  Pireeni came to see the dance, talked with her about possibilities for future collaborations and performances.  She brought a CD of a project she did with her husband Colm, an exceptional musician. Titled Bridge Across the Blue it teamed poets and musicians from different cultures that normally do not work together.  We listened to a track where she sonorously read her poem in Dravidian (Tamil), English and ended in Gaelic (Colm's native language) accompanied by Colm's haunting music that marries Irish and Indian raga music.   Simply beautiful.  Dinner prepared by chef Dan - delicious vegie stir fry with tempeh.  Afterward walk to artist barn, take out my drawing material and begin sketching the landscape.  As it get darks outside, I return to my studio and listen to the rest of Pireeni's CD.  Is it any wonder I'm dismayed about the loss of all this time and interchange with others?  

Incubation

Take this image: a string seems to be unraveling from her body.  It is like a skein of silk looping out, unfurling as if her being was made of cloth and she sees that the fabric is made of a billion tiny dancers – each one of them now pirouetting, moving, leaping, tumbling – out of sync with each other – the central timing, cadence, rhythm falling apart.  That's from Devavani Chatterjea relating to immunology. A poem by Pireeni Sundaralingam that's so visual and kinesthetic that I see it in my mind's eye.  Music by Ari Frankel that spans from text integrated music to driving, pulsating energy to achingly beautiful.   Mechanized flip charts by physicist Jim Crutchfield that spin out patterns that leap, twirl and glide.  A 3- D vortex that you enter and become the center of by geologist Dawn Sumner.  Dreams visualized in drawings by artist Meredith Tromble will eventually be placed in the 3-D vortex.  I take the image, I have the poem, the music is on a thumb drive, I look over and over at the flip charts, I enter the 3-D vortex, I see the dreams.  I talk and see and listen to all of these scientists and artists, and the information incubates inside of me.  I don't know when or how it will come out, but fertile ground is being laid.  Like the fog that rolls in in the morning, eventually clearing to a breathtaking view, creation awaits.  This is the magic of this residency.

Plumbing art and science

Last night we had a discussion with the artists and scientists about art/science collaborations - what they are, do they work, who’s interested in them, etc.  Lively for sure.  The jury is out about these collaborations - 2 of the scientists think most scientists aren’t interested or don't care, 2 think scientists gain more from such collaborations than artists do.  All the artists seemed interested.  So I guess it’s a matter of finding the right scientists - no big surprise.  But we all agreed curiosity is the motivating force for both scientists and artists.

Immunologist Devavani Chatterjea and I have been talking about a melding of our practices.  I asked her to write down some images of the process of immunology, and when she gave them to me I asked for her to make them more pictorial.  She came up with a picture/story that is a wonderful script for a dance.  Meanwhile she came to my studio and did a movement exploration session with me.  So we are reaching some common ground that can be built upon.  Devavani suggested that to get a true idea of what she does it would be good to come to her lab for a period of time (week?) and not only observe but participate, and for her to do the same coming to rehearsals with me.  She teaches at a small college in Minnesota, so it's not exactly close, but doable.  We're having fun playing with different scenarios and she's adding more story images.

Today I'm meeting with chaos/pattern formation physicist Jim Crutchfield.  In his presentation to the group he talked about how he makes objects to help him understand the theories he's working out.  He showed this 3 column flip chart that has physics symbols on the face of each card that is in each column.  It's mechanical so he can turn it on and the cards all flip at the same time.  The most amazing patterns emerge - I of course immediately saw the potential for a dance based on the patterning of the flip chart. So we're meeting to determine if the patterns can be mapped out in a way that will enable me to work with them to put bodies in space.

In the end it doesn't matter to me whether or not most scientists are interested in working with artists, I just need to find the ones that are.  And they're out there.